The Value of Using Targeted Advertising to Maximize Consumer Engagement

Broad Advertising Versus Targeted Advertising

Effective communication is key to running a successful business during a pandemic. Given that face-to-face contact with customers is limited due to distancing restrictions, it may feel like the ability to demonstrate your company’s goods, services, and values are also restricted. While broad social media campaigns are easy and convenient to implement, targeting specific demographic groups has been shown to be more effective and will lead to better results for your organization.

What is Targeted Advertising?

Targeted advertising uses analytics from different websites, applications, and media types to understand the desires of various demographic groups and how they interact with content. This allows for organizations to create specific advertising campaigns for each group that best fits their unique interests. 

For example, the way an organization would appeal to a young professional is different than the way an organization would appeal to a retiree. Each demographic group has a unique set of wants and desires which, thus, requires a different approach in order to optimize their interaction and engagement with the advertisement. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow for business profiles to look at who is interacting with their content, which provides a great insight into the customer base that is present on these channels. Using these analytics is invaluable to creating a successful targeted advertising campaign on digital platforms.

Locating and Analyzing Data

For advertising campaigns on Facebook, you can find data about the impressions your advertisement is receiving by looking under the campaign tab of “Ads Manager.” On Instagram, you can find data about impressions from the insights button, which appears next to each post on a business account. The data provided by these sites allows your organization to see how many visits your website is getting from a post, who is interacting with your content, and how they are interacting with it. This will not only give you a better idea of who to target, but what kinds of posts perform best with your client base. 

Trends may appear over time which indicate that certain types of posts, messages, and content do better with your client base than others. All of this information is made readily available by social platforms, making it easy for companies to identify trends and use the data to maximize interactions with content. Tailoring your content is a useful way for your business and organization to present content that is valued by your clients and intrigues them into coming back. This will make you stand out on the market and help you better connect with the people that make your organization thrive. 

In the Spring of 2021, Rem and Company utilized the targeting specific demographic groups strategy in a consulting engagement with a nonprofit. With a business model that relies on donations to fund their charitable projects, the nonprofit we worked with needed to use events to raise money throughout the year. Previously, the organization had believed that women ages 60 and older were most likely to donate to the organization, leading the company to develop social media campaigns which targeted this demographic. However, while this group may be a large part of their donor base, this group is not well-represented on social media, leaving many of their past attempts fruitless and without many donations. 

After looking at the data that Facebook and Instagram provided about their interactions, Rem and Company identified that their most active demographic is women ages 25-44. Over two-thirds of the people who view this organization’s posts are in this group, as such they are most effective at disseminating information to others.

Once the organization began to target this demographic, their donations and interactions with the advertisement overtook the interactions of the previous campaigns, even while having a smaller budget. Facebook advertisements allowed for the organization to better reach out to a younger age group and allowed for them to see growth in their donations because of it. As for the 60 and older group, the organization decided to focus more on in-person and physical advertising, such as flyers. 

These different strategies allowed for the same information to be conveyed in formats that best appeal to each group, making it more likely that they will act on the information and share it with those in their spheres of influence. Read other case studies about the pro-bono consulting work we do for nonprofits and small businesses.

As a social impact initiative, Rem and Company also offers free consulting services and resources to small businesses and nonprofits impacted by COVID-19. Our pro-bono consulting teams provide small businesses with the opportunity to identify and prioritize issues facing their business, propose innovative strategies, and facilitate execution. If you are a small business or nonprofit in need of assistance, learn more about how we can help.